Stephen Hawking: Don't Talk to Aliens

[Neytiri]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/s ... 107207.ece

[jbuck919]

Evidently it does not bother Hawking that this idea is a cliche of science fiction melodrama (or maybe he does not know that and thinks he's having an original thought). Anyway, we're probably safe from such contact.

Another breakthrough is the discovery that life on Earth has proven able to colonise its most extreme environments. If life can survive and evolve there, scientists reason, then perhaps nowhere is out of bounds.

I assume that is the thought of the author of the article and not Hawking (or any scientist). All life on Earth that has been discovered existing in extreme environments evolved from life that arose under "friendlier" circumstances, meaning with the energy of a bright-burning and relatively proximate sun. We do not know, and have good reason to doubt, that life can evolve primarily under other conditions.

[Ralph]

I love it when they lump extraterrestrials into one image. They are just as varied, even more so, than we are. I'm not just talking about physical structure (eight arms or five sets of eyes) but their beliefs, dogma, religion, moral values and history. It's a huge universe!!!!!!

[Mark Harwood]

"All life on Earth that has been discovered existing in extreme environments evolved from life that arose under "friendlier" circumstances..."

Are you sure, jbuck? I don't know how the kingdoms, eg. Archaea, are related to each other, or where mitochondria joined forces with cells, but isn't it possible that the first life on Earth was in dark places with only thermal & chemical energy available? Views on this do seem to keep evolving.

[living_stradivarius]

Hawking's just exercising some deductive reasoning here. Of course his premises can be challenged

[jbuck919]

"All life on Earth that has been discovered existing in extreme environments evolved from life that arose under "friendlier" circumstances..."

Are you sure, jbuck?

Just something I heard on a science program.